Social Reproduction of Inequality and Education in Minorities and Indigenous societies

Santiago FlórezResearch On Urban and Minority Education Prof. Pedro Noguera 5/15/2015

“Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a different language and anew way of looking at things, the human race has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't

have to learn his language or his new way of looking at things.”

Zapp Brannigan – Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Bucks

Social Reproduction of Inequality and Education in Minorities andIndigenous societies

Introduction:

Imagine a Native American or a Native Hawaiian or Black American

student that has to present a standardized test in order to be

accepted into college. Standardized tests are used as filters to

determine and measure if students have the abilities to be

competent in any college or education institutions. Probably the

school to which this student is attending is also being held

accountable of through the results of their students. Even if the

student speaks as a first language the native tongue of his

community, he is going to be evaluated in English. Who will

decide these tests? His community? The government? In the United

States for profit companies like Pearson Education corporation

are being used to design and implement standardized test in the

United States. Many students in the United States are going to go

to a school run by Pearson, read books produces by Pearson and is

being evaluated by Pearson standardized tests (Collins, 2012).

Will a corporation, that has the goal of searching for profit, be

in the best position the educate and determine that abilities

that a Native American or a Native Hawaiian or Black American

need to learn in school? Will this student be engaged in the

classroom learning about Pilgrims and Christopher Columbus? Even

when many methods and subjects can alienate the student from his

education and seem separate form his experience. How will a

Native American learn about the Pilgrims if their values are

celebrated by mainstream society but for him are a symbol of

genocide? The members of different minorities have to learn the

history and the knowledge about the majority of society in order

to be able to succeed academically and economically, even if that

culture seems distant or even invasive to his community. Does

that student have the same opportunities than students from

mainstream culture? Does he have the same cultural capital

necessary to success in school and in mainstream society? If this

student manages to succeed, will he learn knowledge that is

useful for him and his society? And if he fails would he be able

to fully integrate to society? Or is he going to become an actor

in the social reproduction of inequality?

In order to stop the social and economic inequality education

offers two different choices to minorities and indigenous

cultures around the world. They can adapt and change their

culture and behavior to mainstream society and achieve social and

economy mobility creating a more homogenized culture or they can

resist it and search for different ways to educate their children

in order to survive (and preserve) their culture in a globalized

world. In the United States of America Black Americans have been

highly assimilated to mainstream culture both as producers and

consumers however that has not led to social and economic

integration. On the other hand many Native Americans around the

continent have demanded for self-determination and compensation

for the genocide of their cultures during colonization.

Indigenous education offered an opportunity for healing, self-

determination and cultural preservation; however indigenous

education institutions, like the Native Hawaiian Charter Schools,

have to be approved, funded and are accountable to what is seen

as the settler/colonial state, limiting their potential and the

desired change on their communities.

For Orlando Patterson Black Americans have Black Americans show a

great paradox in the United States, Blacks have achieved powerful

influence both in the nation´s politics and culture, however

Blacks continue to struggle in the educational system, are highly

underrepresented in the scientific and technology sectors and

continue to live in highly segregated and improvised communities

(Patterson & Fosse, Introduction, 2015). For Blacks the

assimilation to mainstream culture has not translated in the

desired economic and social mobility. Therefore Patterson argues

for more changes in the culture and behavior of Black Americans

to improve their assimilation to mainstream society. On the other

hand, the Hawaiian Charter School Movement show the tensions and

conflicts that arise between a school with the purpose of native

self-determination and the settler state that has to approve and

holds it accountable. Author and educator Noelani Goodyear-

Ka’opua narrates how the school purpose, goals, philosophy and

education had to be changed in order to implement the No Child

Left Behind Act. For her and many other Hawaiian educators the

implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act was an imposed

policy that limited the potential of indigenous education in

their schools (Goodyear-Ka'opua, 2013).

The traditional role of education of assimilate minorities into mainstream

society:

Through all of the American continent minorities and indigenous

communities face several struggles. Most of them live in poverty

and in segregated communities, most present high rates of

violence, alcoholism and suicide. In most countries their

communities are underrepresented in education, science, economics

and politics. Some have been assimilated into mainstream society

but still face segregation and discrimination and other

communities actively resist cultural assimilation. The problem

with assimilation is that makes indigenous knowledge and culture

less important than mainstream college and culture. A Black

student in any school would have to learn about Black history in

a different month than the rest of the history of the United

States (Black History Month). Why Black history month and not

White history month or Irish history month? Is Black History

different than the history of the United States? The problem with

assimilation is that the Black students are not being recognized

as equals but as separates from the rest of society. Does

assimilation to mainstream culture guarantees acceptance and

social and economic mobility? What is the role of education in

the cultural, political and economic struggles of several

indigenous cultures and social minorities around the world? After

the tragic history of many indigenous cultures and minorities of

violence, genocide, segregation and dispossession, what role can

education play within these communities to achieve liberation,

healing, mobility and success?

In the United States education has not only been presented as a

tool to guarantee economic success but as a great equalizer

between different social groups. Public schools have the role of

assimilating immigrants and minorities into mainstream culture.

Assimilation and conformity with the values, social norms,

expectations and cultural practices of the culture dominant in

the United States are seen as equivalent of social and economic

success, in other words assimilation is seen the equivalent of

social and economic mobility. That’s why in this country

education had the essential role of assimilating immigrants and

preparing them to become citizens. Today education is not only

based on western values but on economic values. Political

discourse on education around the world is based on creating a

more educated workforce and better results on global standardized

tests (for example the PISA tests – Program for International

Students Assessments), because both governments and business see

a connection between an educated work force and economic growth.

That´s why authors like Greg Duncan and Richard Murnane argue

that public education should be reform and changed, because

education should be able (and its currently failing to) to

provide students the tools to be economically successful. In

their book Restoring Opportunity: The Crisis of Inequality and the Challenge for

American Education Duncan and Murnane argue that during the 30 years

after World War II the unprecedented economic growth that was

experienced by the United States was fueled by an increasingly

educated work force, they argue that the public system education

led to an increase in the shared living standards and mobility in

the United States, education was the great equalizer in United

States (Duncan & Murnane, 2014). For philosopher Martha Nussbaum

the Left No Child Behind Act had the goal of using education as a

tool for economic growth. By making teachers accountable by

measuring the results of their students on standardized tests,

the act managed to make the abilities being evaluated more

important than other abilities. Math and reading became more

important in classrooms than science, history and art and other

subjects that provide essential skills for the forming of

democratic in citizens (Nussbaum, 2010).

It’s important to problematize the role of education of

assimilating minorities into mainstream culture. First, the

assimilation to mainstream culture does not guarantee that these

social groups are going to be accepted and incorporated into

mainstream culture. Second, the assimilation to mainstream

culture may not be desirable for some groups and they might see

assimilation as cultural imposition. Although assimilation in

education may have the goal of providing the necessary tools to

achieve success to social groups that have been historically

marginalized and segregated from mainstream society, it also

creates a hierarchy of the knowledge and cultural practices, were

everything different might be appreciated and tolerated but not

appreciated and respected as equally beneficial and valuable for

students. In the second chapter of the book Framing Dropouts

Michelle Fine describes a history class she observed while doing

her ethnography on urban dropouts on a New York high school. She

describes and reflects on a class were the teacher was trying to

lead a discussion referring to the culture of Americans based on

the culture brought by the puritans while most of the students in

the class were Black and Latino, and do not have a Puritan

background therefore could not understand and/or be engaged with

the lesson; Fine reflects with this example on the politics of

silencing students inside the classroom and in the schools

curriculum that alienates students from the education that they

are receiving and can motivate them to abandon their studies

(Fine, 1991). Amilclar Cabral argued that for foreigner to

dominate other society permanently it must destroy or at least

neutralize that society cultural life, in order to harmonize

economic and political domination with their cultural identity

(Cabral, 1973). Therefore in order to be successful within the

colonial structures African students had to learn the culture of

their colonizers. Today minorities and indigenous individuals

that want to be successful they must learn the culture form

mainstream society. This creates a hierarchy of knowledge were

mainstream knowledge/values are desirable and other

knowledge/values are irrelevant.

Assimilation and acceptance to mainstream society:

Even when an individual from an ethnic minority or indigenous

society manages to be fully assimilated it does not

alwaystranslate into acceptance. In a private event the former

mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, made some controversial

remarks regarding president Obama patriotism ““I do not believe,

and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe

that the president loves America… He doesn’t love you. And he

doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up

and I was brought up through love of this country.” After the

controversy of his remarks he tried to explain himself saying

that the president was more of a critic than a supporter of

America. What´s interesting (and troublesome) about Giuliani

remark is that he defines and identifies the president as being

different from him (and obviously his audience) because he was

brought up in different ways the president would never be an equal

to them, therefore the president could not love America like him,

he could not love him and everyone that was brought up like him.

The president is being rejected and estranged by Giuliani because

he is different even when he has assimilated to society. Even

after being elected twice as president of the United States of

America some actors of the traditional political discourse in the

United States have not been able to accept Barak Obama.

Congressmen and some political media have called him a liar,

arrogant, communist, elitist, socialist terrorist, dictator,

emperor, king; also some members of the press and of congress

have heckled the president while he is given a speech or on the

middle of an announcement. Do this nastiness and the

obstructionist Congress that president Obama has faced is part of

the normal political discourse in Washington? Or does it

represent an unwillingness of the political elites to accept a

president that represents the minorities and changing

demographics in the United States? It can be easily argued that

Barak Obama has been assimilated to the mainstream culture and

political life of the United States; he graduated from Harvard

and taught at the University of Chicago. He was elected as state

senator, as a U.S. senator and twice as a president. Why after

being assimilated to mainstream cultural and the political

institutions, he still not accepted by some political elites?

Charles M. Blow, columnist of the New York Times, argues that the

president was elected and represents a more diverse electorate

with more liberal views, and that frightens many conservative

politicians. For them the president’s greatest sins are his

success and his self (Blown, 2014). Again the president is

defined and rejected just because he is different, no matter that

he is assimilated to mainstream culture. In an interview with the

New York Times the president described the rejection he has

received by some congressmen “There’s not an action that I take

that you don’t have some folks in Congress who say that I’m

usurping my authority. Some of those folks think I usurp my

authority by having the gall to win the presidency” (Obama,

2013).

Assimilation and acceptance have not been equal to many social

groups in America. For example Spanish colonial institutions

always tried to assimilate the conquered indigenous societies

through education. In the Spanish colonies both missionaries and

ecomenderos (the holders of the land conquered by the Spanish crown

and owners of the indigenous labor) had, by royal decree, the

duty to educate indigenous population into European ways (that

included Christianity and literacy). The goal of the Spanish

Crown was that education would be a successful tool in converting

the indigenous population into submissive subjects. However even

when some indigenous populations converted to Christianity and

achieved literacy, most of them were segregated geographically,

socially and economically. During the first half of the 20th

century the government of the United States started an education

program for Native Americans the Off-Reservation Indian Boarding

Schools. Based on what was called successful experiences with

Indian prisons in Florida, the government designed these schools

to separate indigenous students from their cultural background

and impose the mainstream values, by separating physically and

geographically students from their families and communities by

taking them out of the reservation and exposing them through

education to mainstream culture (Child, 1995). In her book

“Boarding School Seasons” author Brenda J. Child discusses the

mix results of the boarding schools. Although most graduates of

these schools were critical and negative about their experiences

within the boarding schools, the author argues that it did

provide them with knowledge to deal with the bureaucratic process

of government and shaped the actions of many indigenous political

leaders. However the main concern for graduates of the boarding

schools were to find employment and because racial barriers most

graduates were unsuccessful to find employment outside their

reservations, it was difficult for them to find employment even

in the Department of Indian Affairs and in the Indian Boarding

Schools (Child, 1995). The Boarding School program promoted by

the government during the first half of the 20th century assumed

that it would only need to change the culture of the indigenous

tribe for them to be assimilated, it didn´t consider racists

attitudes in society that prevented Native American students to

be accepted into society. Many Native Americans showed

assimilation to mainstream culture, most traditional games were

replaced by mainstream sports like football and baseball, most of

them showed proficiency in English and mastery of several

bureaucratic and economic skills, however most Native American

were never accepted into mainstream society and most went back to

their reservations and traditional culture and continued to live

in segregated communities (Child, 1995).

Several US territories like Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and

the Virgin Islands, have been geographically, politically and

economically annexed and assimilated to the United States.

Nevertheless their inhabitants (that would be consider a ethnic

minorities in the United States) have not been accepted as equal

citizens of this country. For example, in a recent visit to

Puerto Rico the possible candidate for president Jeb Bush said to

his audience, that he understood “the power of the immigrant

experience” (Bush, 2015), ignoring the fact that Puerto Ricans

are not immigrants in the United States, because they are born in

a territory of the United States, they are citizens of the United

States. Congress made Puerto Ricans citizens of the United States

in 1917 with the Jones-Shafroth Act (almost 100 years ago), but

still Puerto Ricans are identified and treated as immigrants in

the United States. Even when Puerto Rico has a bigger population

than 21 U.S. states (Puerto Rico population if of 3.5 million,

while the state with the smallest population is Wyoming with a

population of a little more than 500.000) the citizens of Puerto

Rico can´t vote for President and do not have a representative in

Congress (they do have a delegate that has a voice but does not

have a vote). The natives of all this territories assimilated

economically and politically into the United States, but their

assimilation has not translated into acceptance and recognition

as equal citizens.

Cultural resistance to assimilation and conflicts/tensions between education and

the struggles of indigenous communities:

Not only assimilation does not guarantees acceptance into

mainstream culture, but many cultures and communities actively

resist assimilation into mainstream culture. For example, the

Hawaiian Charter Schools movement started as part of the struggle

for self-determination of the Native Hawaiian indigenous

communities (Goodyear-Ka'opua, 2013). In her book Hawaiian

educator Noelani Goodyear-Ka'opua The Seeds We Planted explores the

contradictions of creating an indigenous based school (with

indigenous curriculum) that has to be accountable to and approved

by the government of the United States, which is seen as a

settler government. Many activist and citizens from Hawaii showed

concern that public education system was not beneficial for

native Hawaiians because it ignores their history and their

needs. Native Hawaiians students present worst results, higher

dropout rates, higher drug and alcohol rates and higher violence

rates (specially of teenage rape) than the rest of the population

in the islands. Noelani Goodyear-Ka'opua argues that the colonial

institutions imposed by the government of United States in Native

Hawaiians are designed to marginalize and displace indigenous

knowledge and relations. For her, and many educators in Hawaii,

native Hawaiians have been negative affected by being forced to

assimilate into public education system and in order to heal and

construct communal well being indigenous communities should be

actively involved and be able to control their education

(Goodyear-Ka'opua, 2013). Noelani Goodyear-Ka'opua argues that

the rise of charter school in the U.S created the opportunity to

Hawaiian educators to create schools outside the public school

institutions that would focus on indigenous knowledge and needs,

although it has to be approved and financed by the settler

government.

Another example of the resistance to being assimilated into

mainstream culture is found in several indigenous cultures in

Colombia, for them assimilating mainstream values would be a

betrayal of their indigenous identities. After more than five

hundred years of genocide, marginalization and segregation from

the European colonizers and their Colombian heirs, they have

isolated themselves from the rest of the world in what they call

“belly-bottom of earth”. Under the Colombian constitution of 1991

the Koguis have the right to control the access of outsiders to

their lands. They do not permit the entrance of most foreigners

into their lands and only a handful of non-indigenous Colombians

have been allowed to enter to one of their sacred cities (the

most recent was by Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos during

the first ceremony of possession for a Colombian president with a

native community in 2010). The Koguis define their identity by

being the opposite of the exterior world and take pride of being

guardians of the indigenous knowledge and of living in harmony

with both nature; all humans that are not Kogui are considered

the “little brothers” while they consider themselves the “big

brothers” that have the mission of guiding humanity (Uribe,

1998). The Koguis refuse to participate in the political process

in Colombia, they have successfully stopped any attempts of

creating public schools in their territories and refuse most

influences from the outside world (although it must be noted that

an Italian priest convinced the indigenous leaders to let him

open an boarding school in their territory for indigenous

students of the lower casts). For them assimilating to the rest

of the Colombian society would be a betrayal to their tradition,

their values and their purpose as Koguis (Uribe, 1998)

Some times (its important not to generalize) there is conflict

between public policy that aims for minorities to be assimilated

into mainstream culture/society and the interests of self-

determination, civil rights struggles and cultural preservation

efforts of these minorities. Education has the power of

reproducing colonial institutions, policies and ideas, as well as

it reproduces social and economic inequality in society.

Colonization help in the creation, imposition and expansion of

the definition of what an educated person should be, based on the

ideals of European elites and to the detrainment of local

knowledge of many cultures around the world. An example of these

conflicts can be seen in the bilingual education within Colombia.

In Colombia more than seventy different languages can be found;

most of them are from indigenous and African communities (two

unique forms of creole languages exist only in Colombia). After

several decades of struggles demanding civil rights, the Congress

of Colombia decreed through the law 115 of 1994 that all

minorities groups had the right to receive bilingual education.

The law has the explicit purpose of giving indigenous communities

the right to choose in which language they want to learn most of

their subjects as long as the students receive Spanish classes.

The law also states that bilingual education is a tool for the

preservation and conservation of indigenous cultures and

knowledge in Colombia. However in 2004 the Ministry of Education

started a program (in partnership with the British Council)

titled Bilingual Colombia 2019 that has the purpose of educating

all Colombian students in both Spanish and English. The new

program has made many indigenous schools to abandon the teaching

of indigenous languages and start teaching English instead. The

most controversial case is in the archipelago of San Andres,

Providence and Santa Catalina were natives speak a unique kind

creole language named raizal (a mixture between English and several

African languages that developed in this islands) were students

are being discriminated for not using “proper” English and

encouraged to abandon their native language and replace it with

English or Spanish. Many in the islands are fighting in order for

the Colombian government to recognize raizal as valid within public

education as English or Spanish, and many insist that the poor

performance of raizales in school is that they are not being taught

in their first language (Revista Semana , 2015). The interest of

the Ministry of Education is to form educated citizens that by

speaking two languages (Spanish and foreign language) they are

going to be prepared for the challenges of globalization and the

global economy, therefore the Ministry of Education has the aim

of making all school in Colombia bilingual by 2019 (White, 2006).

Hoverer is important to examine if learning English (and Spanish)

would be relevant in the struggles for self-determination and

cultural conservation of most minorities in Colombia. Is learning

English desired and useful for these communities? Who should

decide what language is important for them to learn? There are

many ethnographic reports of indigenous kids in the amazon rain

forest that grow up learning four or five different languages.

Are they less educated because none of those languages are

European? Does that make them less relevant for helping them find

a job? Who should decide what’s best for these communities? Is it

better their desire to conserve their language, culture and

values or is it better to have homogenized citizens prepared for

the global world? Is it possible for education institutions, like

the Ministry Education, to promote indigenous knowledge and at

the same time educational skills that considers essential for the

global economy? Education should be accountable for the local

communities or to state institutions?

The history of the Hawaiian Charter Schools movement offers

another example were the interests of the natives are in conflict

with the interests of public education institutions. Most of the

Charter Schools in Hawaii are formed through grassroots movements

with the purpose of serving their communities by helping in the

development of the necessary conditions for the self-

determination of native Hawaiians using Hawaiian culture as an

organizing force for the developing their education principles,

curriculum, instruction, assessment, education philosophy and

school structure (Goodyear-Ka'opua, 2013). However there is a

tension between these charter schools and several of the

educational institutions that approve and fund these schools.

Many Hawaiian educators see the institutions that represent the

government of the United States as outsiders, settlers and even

the opposition of their identity as Hawaiians. The conflict

between the purpose of these schools and state institutions

became more evident in 2012 with the implementation of the No

Child Left Behind Act. Many schools had to abandon their purpose

of self-determination and the use of using Hawaiian culture as

the center of their pedagogic practice and replace in order to

balance the core academics needed to prepare students for post

secondary schooling, searching a balance between state standards

and Hawaiian culture. For these schools the need to demonstrate

alignment to the “settler state-determined curriculum” is a

question of survival and to navigate the conflicts of cultural

preservation and outside domination (Goodyear-Ka'opua, 2013).

Education as an agent on the reproduction of colonial structures that rob

identity and dignity:

For many Hawaiians the No Child Left Behind Act is just another

example on how the settler government has made indigenous

knowledge inferior than western knowledge, were the math and

reading skills become more important than indigenous or communal

values (Goodyear-Ka'opua, 2013). The hierarchization of

different knowledge’s is a legacy of colonialism that can be seen

around the world. Colonization was the imposition of one culture

as a superior to another culture, where the superior culture is

obliged to protect and educate the inferior logic, disposing the

colonized subjects of their humanity. The infamous King Leopold

II of the Belgians describing the role of Belgium soldiers in

Africa in a letter to Guy Barrows “the natives who will see in

them (the soldiers) the all powerful protectors of their lives

and their property benevolent teachers of whom the have so great

a need” (Burrows, 1898). Colonizers have justified their actions

claiming that their subjects needed both protection and

education, disposing them of their culture, history and lands.

Nigerian author Chinua Achebe while writing about colonial rule

in Africa described perfectly how colonial rule dispossessed the

colonized from their humanity and converted them into mere

child’s needing guidance and protection: “it is a gross crime for

anyone to impose himself on another, to seize his land and his

history and then to compound this by making out that the victim

of a ward or minor requiring of protection” (Achebe, 2009).

The colonial institutions needed to be justified in order to

sustain their political power and economical exploitation.

Education of colonial subjects through colonial standards and

themes provided the justification and reproduction of colonial

rule. By grooming local elites with through education, colonial

powers created the means to reproduce and justify the colonial

structures. Colonial discourse led to justify the their power by

presenting themselves as teacher and leaders of their colonial

subjects, rejecting or judging inferior the local knowledge and

values. For example, official discourse in Hawaii public schools

states that literacy abilities and the written form of Hawaiian

language are a product of the Calvinist missionaries that arrived

to the islands in 1820, however there is historical evidence of

developments of written Hawaiian language before this period

based on the observations and reports of the crew of Captain Cook

and converted Hawaiians like Thomas Hopu (Schutz, 1994). As a

personal anecdote, I remember learning about Christopher Columbus

in school as a sailor that wanted to prove that the earth was

round (ignoring that ancient Greeks proved that the earth was

round almost 2000 years before him) and that when he discovered

the New World he brought the gifts of Christianity and

civilization to the natives. Both narratives of Christopher

Columbus and Calvinist missionaries in Hawaii have the purpose of

morally justifying colonialism, the imposition of western values

and the crimes of against the indigenous societies in America.

Those narratives dehumanize the native societies that were

settled in America and Hawaii before the arrival of the

Europeans.

Paulo Freire, identified the great historical task of our times

the struggle of individuals that have been oppressed and

exploited by those of with great power for liberating themselves

(and their oppressors) as a struggle to recover the humanity that

has been stolen from them (Freire, 1968). Through oppression and

education colonial powers managed, in Freire words, to dehumanize

colonial subject making them inferior and justifying the unequal

structures of colonial rule. For Hawaiians the public education

and the settler government of the United States does not

recognize their indigenous knowledge as valuable western

knowledge. Therefore the No Child Left Behind act is seen as

imposition that will not let them achieve their objective of self

determination and cultural conservation, schools have adapt to

the act not of conviction but as an act of survival (Goodyear-

Ka'opua, 2013). There is a conflict between the interest of the

government of the United States and its goals and the interests

of the indigenous communities in Hawaii, however the imposition

of standards with no other option or choice creates the

dehumanization and dispossession of indigenous knowledge.

Education becomes a tool for the reproduction of colonial

institutions that reproduce social and economic inequality for

these communities.

Reproduction of inequality in Black Americans and Native Americans:

The No Child Left Behind Act starts with the following goal “An

Act to close the achievement gap with accountability,

flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind.” (107th

Congress, 2002). Although evidence suggest it seems to be a

conflict between accountability and choice within the Hawaiian

Charter school movement. The charter school offers a different

choice for the education Hawaiian students and their families but

the accountability through standardize test is interpreted as

settler imposition that limits the potential of these schools to

be transformative in their communities. For them limiting the

accountability to reading and math abilities measured in

standardized tests are limiting the benefits that their school

can produce in their communities. How should then policy makers

and public institutions deal with native and minorities students?

Do their needs and expectations are the same than the rest of the

population? Should their educational institutions be held

accountable with the same standers? Should these schools address

the same needs and have the same objectives than the rest of

school in the country?

Many activists, researchers, journalists and a recent report of

the Executive Office of the President of the United States argue

that both native and minorities students are more at risk than

students from general population. Due to almost 500 years of

genocide, marginalization and segregation have created several

cultural, social and economic problems for these communities. A

research published in the Journal of the American Academy of

Child & Adolescent Psychiatry reported being Native Hawaiian as a

risk factor in teens for attempted suicide because they found

that Native Hawaiians have a much higher suicide attempt rate

than non being Native Hawaiian in the State of Hawaii (Yuen,

Nahuku, Hishinuma, & Miyamoto, 2000). A recent article in the

New York Times described the devastating situation of the Pine

Ridge Indian reservation that presents high alcoholism, poverty

and violence rates, between December 2014 and March 2015 nine

adolescents aged between 12-24 committed suicide and at least 102

attempted suicides in the same age group (Barker, 2015). A

report published by Executive Office of the President states:

“Native youth and Native education are in a state of emergency.

Low rates of educational attainment perpetuate a cycle of limited

opportunity for higher education or economic success for American

Indians and Alaska Natives” (Executive Office of the President,

2014). The report shows a grim picture for Native American

students within public education, they perform worst, are most

commonly expelled and have higher dropout rates.

Black Americans have also been constantly marginalized and

segregated. Recent protests in Ferguson and Baltimore have shown

that Black Americans continue to face high levels of segregation,

marginalization and are racially targeted and treated unjustly

and brutally by the police officers. After the riots in 1967 in

Detroit and the riots in Washington of D.C. in 1968 president

Lyndon Johnson commissioned what is known as the Kemer Report

that stated that due to the high levels of social, economic and

political inequality U.S. society was heading into two unequal

societies one white and one black. Fifty years after the report

and the civil right movements, inequality between blacks and

whites is still growing, for example the New York Times recently

reported that the income gap between blacks and white is bigger

today in the USA than it was in South Africa during the Apartheid

years (Kristof, 2014). Richard Rothstein an associate researcher

for the Economic Policy Institute has argued in his articles

Racial segregation continues, and even intensifies and From Ferguson to Baltimore:

The Fruits of Government-Sponsored Segregation how housing segregation

politics income segregation among black families is now 60

percent greater than white families. The ghettos have become

exclusion zones within cities and without policy directed to

eliminate them segregation will continue to exist. Rothstein

argues for race-conscious policy making that can eliminate the

legacy of a century of politics of segregation, in order to stop

the horrible conditions of the ghettos that trigger riots like in

Ferguson and Baltimore (Rothstein, 2012) (Rothstein, 2015).

Almost one year before the Baltimore protest/riots The Baltimore

Sun published a report titled Undue the Force journalist Mark Puente

reported that between 2011 and 2014 the city of Baltimore had to

paid about 5.7 million dollars due to lawsuits due to police

misconduct, the report concluded that the hidden cost was the

perception among citizens that police officers are violent and

have destructive relationship between residents and the police.

The report also showed that in many cities of the United States

like Portland, New Orleans, New York and Ferguson civil rights

lawsuits and inquiries have been launched due to discrimination

by police officers (Puente, 2014). It’s important to make a

distinction between personal racism and institutional racism,

while any individual do reject through his personal beliefs and

values any racist and discriminatory practice, it does not make

that institutions that were constructed with racist ideals,

principles or purposes to affect the life of minorities. Black

Americans, like Native Americans and many other minorities, are

affected by structuralist racism that segregates them socially,

geographically and economically. The ghettos or barrios in many

cities in the United States are associated with low-income

families, minorities, poverty and crime. The experience that

Native Americans and Black Americans have both in education and

with public institutions is different, and more negative, than

mainstream society.

Education and social reproduction of inequality within Native Americans and

Black Americans:

Native Americans and Black Americans, as most indigenous and

minorities around the world, do not share the same experiences

with mainstream culture and institutions than the rest of

societies. They constantly have been segregated and the great

majority live in poverty within highly unequal societies.

Education has be used/proposed as a tool to improve the mobility,

income, and integration of minorities to mainstream society. Greg

Duncan and Richard Murnane argue for the need of policy makers

based on previous experiences of public education in the United

States, from them the openness of the public education system

made it possible to low income families to obtain more education

than their parents and successfully giving them the tools to join

the middle class (Duncan & Murnane, 2014). Orlando Patterson

argues that greatest sin of segregation is the exclusion of

procedural knowledge that comes only with growing up and

networking with mainstream children and institutions (Patterson,

The Social and Cultural Matrix of Black Youth, 2015). For

Patterson the procedural knowledge or cultural capital are the

know how´s that are essential for navigating in society, he

argues that Black children do not receive procedural knowledge

and that affects them when trying to find employment or in their

relationship with other institutions. That’s why for Orlando

Patterson education efforts should be focused in giving

procedural knowledge to students for segregated through

educational institutions and job training organizations. In the

last chapter “Conclusion: What have we learned?” of the book

Cultural Matrix: Understanding Black Youth authors Orlando Paterson and

Ethan Fosse argue for the need of changing in culture and

behavior through policy and innervation to integrate minorities

into mainstream culture (Patterson & Fosse, Conclusion: What have

we learned, 2015). President Obama has approached differently to

education of Black Americans and Native Americans. Through the

program My Brother´s Keeper (in an interview with Saloon Paterson

said that the black community needed programs like My Brother´s

Keeper) that focused on Black students that are struggling in

school and to find a job with the purpose provide mentoring and

improve educational and professional opportunities for Black

Americans. While trying to solve the “crisis of Native American

education” the president tries to balance traditional values and

culture with the economy and globalization by giving the power of

reform to the communities “our children deserve a world- class

education, too, that prepares them for college and careers. And

that means returning control of Indian education to tribal

nations with additional resources and support so that you can

direct your children’s education and reform schools” (Executive

Office of the President, 2014).

Although all these approaches and efforts to improve the living

conditions and education of minorities are well intended they all

have a paternalistic approach on how these communities should

address their problems and needs. They present what mainstream

culture considers acceptable and beneficial for these

communities. For many Hawaiian educators, as many civil rights

leaders around the word, the best way for people that have been

negatively impacted by systems of power/knowledge that have

monopolized their power/knowledge it to take control of the means

to change those systems. When an external actor judges what is

successful for a community it is hierarchizing their

knowledge/values as superior than the knowledge/values of the

community it’s trying to help. The programs and approaches

mentioned in the previous paragraph judge success as an

equivalent of assimilation to the values and economic benefits of

mainstream culture. Hoverer, some indigenous cultures and social

minorities have different standards for success and have

different expectations, creating a space for tension and

conflict. For the Hawaiian Charter School Movement the greatest

need of the Native Hawaiian students are not the lack of tools

for economic mobility. For them the greatest the need of Native

students is a place and a curriculum that provides equal

opportunities in order to fulfill their cultural needs through

self-determination and learning of the values of their own

cultural heritage, because Native Hawaiian they identify that

Native students are feeling alienated and marginalized in public

schools (Goodyear-Ka'opua, 2013).

In the detailed implementation plan for the Hālau Kū Māna charter

school application the school established its original purpose to

provide its students equal opportunities to thrive and succeed

according to their own standards (Goodyear-Ka'opua, 2013). What

happens when those standards are not the same or even conflict

with the standards of the public institutions that fund the

school? To whom should the school be accountable? To the

institutions that give the money for the functioning of the

school but have different standards of success; or they should be

accountable to the parents and students that share the same

standards of success and choose the school because of them? It’s

especially difficult to be accountable to a state that may

provide the money but is seen as settler state and in many cases

the opposite of the values of the school discourse. When the

schools faced restructuration in 2012 to comply with the No Child

Left Behind Act they had to change its pedagogic approach,

abandoning the idea of Hawaiian culture in the center of their

pedagogic philosophy and trying to balance Hawaii culture with

the settler values of academic success manifested in Math and

English abilities evaluated in standardized tests. For many

educators in the Hawaiian Charter School movement this was a

defeat they had to endure in order to survive the

restructuration.

Conflicts and problems of education as a tool for assimilation of minorities into

mainstream cultures:

Why does the Obama administration propose different policies and

strategies for Native Americans and Black Americans? Orlando

Patterson discusses in the Cultural Matrix the dichotomy of Blacks in

the United States of being fully integrated politically and

culturally (both as producers and consumers of mainstream

culture) but being highly segregated both economically and

socially. Patterson argues that Black Americans have helped in

the creation of a billion dollar industry through hip-hop and

show assimilation to most mainstream culture values like

individualism, patriotism and meritocracy (Patterson, The Social

and Cultural Matrix of Black Youth, 2015). According to Patterson

Blacks have already been assimilated but have failed to be

accepted into mainstream society, which would explain the efforts

to use education to help them achieve economic and social

mobility. When Patterson identifies problems in segregation and

poverty for Blacks he sees problems in Black culture (although he

also acknowledges structural problems) that should be changed but

ignores the context of the whole society. Would it be helpful for

a Black student to receive procedural knowledge or cultural

capital if discriminatory institutions and social behaviors that

segregate him still exist? Can blacks be more integrated without

changes in the whole of society? Obama and Patterson

arguments/ideas/proposals are based on how they conceive Black

Americans should be in order to be assimilated and accepted into

mainstream society. Does their arguments include how Black

Americans see themselves and how they want to be as individuals?

For them to achieve equality is to mimic the behavior of

mainstream society, it creates hierarchy between want Black

Americans are and what they should be as part of mainstream

society. This creates an identity crisis were Black Americans

identity and dignity is removed and replaced by mainstream

culture. When describing the independence struggles of many

African Nations, Amiclar Cabral discussed the problems and

contradictions that the elites had because through colonization

their culture and values have been replaced by the colonial

values (almost all leaders of the independence movements were

educated in Europe) becoming alienated and marginalized within

their own societies. For these elites, that were groomed by

colonizers and are the ones that lead the revolts against them,

the idea of “returning to the source” was a struggle not with

the purpose of returning to tribal traditions but a struggle for

political awareness and dignity (Cabral, 1973). Policies that

are designed to assimilate Black Americans into mainstream

culture through education and job training but fail to

acknowledge political context and dignity of a social group that

has been historically marginalized and segregated are going to be

seen as a cultural imposition or as a paternalistic policy. Will

a young Black student with more cultural capital be able to

achieve mobility in societies were he is targeted by the police

and segregated from housing?

Colonial institutions as well as the housing policies described

by Richard Rothstein show the reproduction of social,

geographical and economical inequality. Are policy efforts

designed to stop the reproduction of economic inequality

sufficient to eliminate social and geographical segregation? Do

the struggles of minorities or indigenous cultures want to

achieve only economic mobility? The experience of African elites

leading independence national struggles described by Amiclar

Cabral that even when the elites received most economic and

social the benefits of the colonial were not sufficient for them

and to support the settler government. Cabral describes cultural

assimilation as a colonial strategy to strengthen their dominance

and permit exploitation through cultural assimilation, therefore

cultural resistance became a form of fighting the colonial

powers. Why will the African elites support independence

struggles if, according to Cabral, were against their social and

economic interests? The colonial native elite had the unique

position of being alienated from the rest of their society and

while living in the racist colonial metropolis, being rejected

and judged as inferiors by the colonizers. For Cabral the

struggle to “return to the source” was the effort of the African

elites to deny and remove the colonial structures that robe the

identity of the dominated colonial subjects, and identity that

was shared with the elites.

Through what a renascence of culture and a reconnection of elites

to the culture of the rest of the society or the “return to the

source” colonial elites started the independence movements with

the aim of reclaiming identity and dignity as humans and

citizens, not with the purpose of regressing to tribal cultural

traditions. (Cabral, 1973). Cabral recognized the danger within

independence movements, he stated that unless the independence

movements recognized the role of culture as a liberator force

they face the danger of repeating the mistakes of the colonial

powers and the leaders of independence became the oppressors in

their countries. The arguments of Cabral show an important light

on the limits of education to stop social and economic inequality

reproduction. Educational interventions and policies targeted to

improve the economic success and mobility through the education

of minorities and indigenous group are implicitly implying those

groups do not to have elements that would help them to achieve

economic success, and fail to recognize and acknowledge the role

of institutions and structures that create the segregation in the

first place. Baltimore and Ferguson protests showed the demand of

Black Americans for dignity (Black lives matter) and showed the

institutional failures of assimilating a population without

recognizing its dignity or its culture. These protest are not

only about the poverty of this neighborhoods but also about their

history of social segregation and discrimination by public

institutions. By promoting economic mobility does the history of

social segregation and dehumanization disappears?

Conclusion - the purpose and possibilities of education within Black and Native

communities:

It seems that assimilation has led to cultural and social

homogenization. Economic success and assimilation, following

Patterson arguments, cultural change is necessary for improving

the quality of life. Education then presents a unique opportunity

to both assimilate culturally students and provide the abilities

to guarantee economic success. In a sobering book Anthony Bryk

and his colleagues discusses the quantifiable benefits of schools

in low-income neighborhoods in Chicago. In their book “Organizing

schools for improvement lessons from Chicago” the authors showed that school

with disadvantaged students that had several positive

characteristics and “well-designed” reform programs made little

or no little difference in their neighborhood and students

improvement in comparison with schools without the positive

characteristics or “well-designed” reform programs. For the

authors reformed aimed to improve disadvantaged schools cannot be

successful without reform and improvement of the neighborhoods

(Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2014). Their

book shows that education should not be the only reform

implemented to improve the life and opportunities of

disadvantaged students, but it should be desired the improvement

of the whole community. Education is not enough for stopping the

reproduction of social an inequality. Society needs a more

holistic approach for reforming not only education but also

institutions and behaviors through all society. Economic success

is not enough to integrate minorities to society or to guarantee

the dignity and cultural identity demanded by many ethnic

minorities.

In 2006 the U.S. Department of Education´s Commission released a

report on the state of higher education in the country titled: A

Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. higher Education. The report

focused exclusively on education as a tool used for economic

national gain, it recommended the implementation of applied

learning in engineering and sciences used to generate skills for

profit making. Arts, humanities and even research in sciences

that due not generate profit (like astrophysics) were omitted in

the report, suggesting that they were not important in higher

learning (Nussbaum, 2010) What is the role of education? Is it a

tool for preparing students to become successfully economically?

Is education a tool for economic growth? What a about democratic

values that are essential for our society? About cultural values

essential to other cultures? Does education has anything to do

with emotions, creations and transcendence of their students? If

schools and universities prepare students for life and not only

to find employment, it must be expected that education has also

the mission of preparing students to be able to achieve well-

being in their personal lives and be able to engage within a

society.

The experience of the Hawaiian Charter School Movement shows the

need and the desire for using education for self-determination

and cultural resistance. Education is not limited to the economic

abilities but expanded through cultural engagement to their

communities and to fulfill their political, social and economic

goals. Although they wanted to be accountable to their indigenous

communities they had to be accountable to the government of the

United States limiting their pedagogic strategies and adapting to

the standards of mainstream society, even if does not benefit

them. The paradox described by Orlando Patterson of the

experience of Blacks in the United States shows that assimilation

to mainstream society does not guarantee social and economic

mobility. By learning mainstream culture they must abandon (or

judge as inferior) their cultural knowledge and embrace the

culture and behavior of mainstream society. However education, or

cultural and behavioral changes, does not produce the desired

effect of integration and mobility without structural and

cultural changes in mainstream society. Housing and police

practices have discriminated Black Americans despite their

assimilation robbing them of their dignity. Both the Hawaiian

Charter School Movement and the experiences of Black Americans

show that mainstream society has profound difficulties in

understanding and integrating minorities. Instead of creating

paths for more educational options and local accountability that

would help in the developing of minorities and indigenous groups

it tries to homogenize them into mainstream culture. When schools

are judged only by abilities that are consider relevant for

economic success, many other abilities fall into the background

the their pedagogic practices. For ethnic minorities and

indigenous groups that try to claim ownership of their own

education and use education for their own purposes, the task is

almost impossible due to the conflicts of being accountable for

different standards of what they consider to be a proper

education. Being accountable by standards of mainstream society

they are being force to adapt and assimilate without reassurance

that they are going to be accepted or without considering if that

is they desire as a community.

Cultural based curriculum, both for Black Americans and Native

Americas, is not to abandon the themes and subjects that are

being taught in public schools. Cultural based curriculum and

schools search for pedagogic the methods and strategies in order

to engage and motivate students that have been alienated by

public schools and institutions. Noelani Goodyear-Ka'opua

describes a lesson in Hālau Kū Māna School were students helped

in the construction and then navigation skills of a traditional

Hawaiian canoe that involved several teachers and environmental,

math, social, science and astronomy skills while at the same

times creating cultural belonging and pride in their students

(Goodyear-Ka'opua, 2013). Christopher Emdin argues in his book

“Urban Science Education for the Hip-Hop Generation” how science teacher can

learn to use hip-hop to engage urban students with science and at

the same time embracing their culture and context (Emdin, 2010).

For Emdin traditional public education is alienating and

disconnecting students by ignoring their personal context and

culture. By using hip-hop he shows how a culture that is relevant

for Black students students can be used to improve their

educational outcomes.

Charter Schools started in the late seventies as an opportunity

for parents for choosing different schools than public schools.

It only seems fair considering that most middle and upper class

have the means to decide the school of their children, while poor

families (including minorities and indigenous communities) do not

always have that choice. If families are able to choose the

school of their children it seems logical that schools should be

accountable to their students and their parents that choose them.

There are multiple ways in which education can reproduce social

and economic inequality, education can alienate students from

their own cultures or rob them from their human dignity. But

education also offers the opportunity for change and improvement.

However for education to be a agent of positive agent in these

communities is important for them to be able appropriate and take

control of the means to change the systems of knowledge and

values that influence them. Education should not be based or

trying to emulate not on the standards and values of mainstream

society but on the values of goals of each community. In a

globalized world it’s impossible to different cultures to be

dependent to one another. However its there is a difference

between the possibility of any community to negotiate there inter

dependence with mainstream society and the cultural imposition of

mainstream culture (through colonial domination or paternalistic

policies). There is a need for Native Americans and Black

Americans to have the power to negotiate their interdependencies

with mainstream society, in the words of Kanak (New Caledonian)

leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou “it´s sovereignty that gives the right

and the power to negotiate interdependencies” (Tjibaou, 1986).

Cultural homogenization through education can led to the

disappearance of different knowledge and values and to the lost

of human dignity of cultures and communities that are different

from mainstream society. Communities with the purpose of

constructing their dignity and identity through integration to

mainstream society should base accountability in education on the

possibility of choice.

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